A New Week

Ah, the wonderful daily grind. It’s usually so hard for me to get back into the swing of things after Thanksgiving, but this year has been different. I bounded out of bed at 5:20 this morning and was so eager to get working hard as quickly as possible. I’m thinking this is my natural coping mechanism. When Grandpa died, I wanted to be as busy as possible (once I got over the initial debilitating and uncontrollable sobbing of course). It was the same when my cat Jamison had to be put to sleep (if you’re laughing at this, you have to realize that Jamison was incredibly precious to me, hehe). And now with these Ciaran good-byes, I find that afterward I always have this insatiable desire to work really, really hard. I guess it could be worse; I could be mopey and not want to get out of bed right?!

So today. My meeting at the school I will be student teaching at went great. I got to meet the principal and my host teacher, as well as see the assistant principal who used to be an assistant principal at South (she remembered me from when I did field work there two years ago..it was nice to see a familiar face). My host teacher seems really great! She gave me a ton of resources to work through the next few weeks as I begin plotting out some rough sketches for my lesson plans. One little surprise though: my host teacher is white. What does that have to do with anything, you are probably thinking to yourself right about now. Well you see, it doesn’t matter, but it was a surprise because everyone I saw in the administration and support staff up until the moment I met her was black. Also, I learned today that this school is known as the “black” school because unlike the other district schools that have an incredibly diverse student population (and as a result have incredibly high racial tensions); this one doesn’t because it’s comprised almost entirely of African Americans. So at least racial tensions and feuding aren’t really something I’m going to have to deal with. I am going to have a few different kinds of challenges to face though. First, apparently I have a few arsonists in my classes and one student in particular is notorious for fighting and injuring his teachers—that should be interesting. My host teacher filled me in on a number of other behavioral and criminal information concerning my future students, but I’m going to wait and see for myself how these kids act before I start blogging about it...it feels too much like gossip until I’ve experienced it first hand. Haha. In all seriousness though, I am incredibly excited about my student teaching placement. My host teacher told me repeatedly today that this placement is guaranteed to make me a better teacher and by observing everything today, I know (without a shadow of a doubt) she’s right. I also know God has me at this school for a distinct purpose; I just can’t wait to get started!